A/N: I own no part of Twilight. Imagine how easy it'd be to pay for college if I did. I present chapter 20 of Static. We're putting a little bit of a dent in the story now.

This chapter is solely focused on Jacob and Bella, and, of course, Bella's obsessive inner monologue. She's interesting to write. She thinks about so much all at once, all the time. Her mind is a hurricane. I hope I'm conveying it that way.

And to the anon who thinks I'm a stoner, I'm not. Try again.

Enjoy.

XX.

triangles are my favorite shape
three points where two lines meet
toe to toe, back to back, let's go, my love, it's very late
'til morning comes, let's tessellate

Jacob tripped over his words. "Bella—Isabella—what do you prefer to be called?"

As they walked down First Beach, the sun was just peeking out from behind the clouds. It was the first taste of summer. It was going to be hot for Forks, but it wasn't going to be hot.

Bella tucked a few strands of hair behind her ear and kept her eyes down on her well-worn Chuck Taylors. Those shoes had seen a lot, she decided. "Whatever you want to call me," she said. "I don't mind."

"Isn't that counter-intuitive?" he asked, tripping over his feet as he stared at her. "Shouldn't you be the one to decide?"

"It doesn't matter that much," she told him, finally looking up. "What would you like to call me?" She smiled shyly, hiding her mouth under the sleeve of her navy blue hoodie. He noticed how nice of a color it was on her against her beautiful, soft, pale skin.

"Blue," he said absentmindedly.

"Blue?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

"And why's that?" she asked quietly.

"Why do names matter at all?" he challenged. "You just asked me for a new one."

"I wanna know the significance. There's significance in every name."

"Not mi—"

"Even yours. So, tell me. Why would you like to call me Blue?"

She waited for him to say something poetic. Then she realized they didn't live in fiction, and he wasn't anything like Edward.

"That jacket looks nice on you," Jacob told her.

"I thought you were gonna say something about my perpetually melancholic disposition."

He sighed, and she was almost positive that he was tired of her already. The second she started to actually talk about her personal life would be the second he'd realize she was fucking nuts and he'd run away. Or better yet, she would have to run away. That made a lot more sense.

But he just sighed and wrapped his arm around her. He was warm—much warmer than her—and she didn't mind. She kind of liked it. Being around Jacob was simple, easy; it didn't feel like a job.

"Blue," he said, "I think that's damn beautiful."

Boys were funny. Bella never got the joke.

Edward had ignored Bella's very serious and very prominent depression, acting like it never existed. Jacob now glorified it. Edward had found it too ugly to think about, and Jacob now found it as a quality that made Bella even more beautiful. He saw it as a talent. He expected her to want to call him in the late hours of the night to go on impromptu road trips and paint pictures and have deep talks about life and how they were wasting it and shit. He didn't know anything except for the movies he'd seen and the books he'd read.

Jacob—as kind and warm and whole as he was—was just as dumb as the rest of them.

That didn't mean she didn't like him, though; that just meant they were short-term. Part-time, just like all the other love around here. She could handle that. Just because she was used to cinematic, otherworldly love of incredible magnitudes didn't mean that simpler, easier love wasn't important, too.

Jacob and Bella started dating that spring and summer, or that was how he liked to describe it. She found dating as such a weird term. She didn't really want to have sex with him yet or even kiss him most of the time, but she knew she didn't want to hang out with anyone else. That was probably what made them a couple. They did the same things as they normally did with everybody else—watch movies at home, go to the beach, slowly waste their lives—but they did it together, and holding hands.

And that was why she kept Jacob around: being around him was so simple and normal. She had never been in a relationship so low-maintenance and relaxing—at least, in a very long time. She and Edward had started out this way, but he had grown up to be just like his father: hungry for money and power and glory. He and Bella had to be very mature. Very adult with scheduled business dates and planned sex (that wasn't necessarily bad). The only time they had recently let their guards down was when they did weed. When they had started dating, they didn't need to do weed a lot, or do anything. They had just liked to be together. They had been kids for a little while, but being with Edward had aged Bella so much in so little time. They had practically been married. They just might be now if she hadn't ruined everything between them.

But she knew she wasn't going to marry Jacob. With him, they were just kids. And at this rate, she wasn't going to marry anybody. She would just date nice boys and hold hands with them and not worry about it. She was going to be a kid again.

Jacob, however, thought they were something else. He thought they were something big, something powerful and cinematic and otherworldly. She was his first real girlfriend. But overall, it was an easy summer so far. Tranquil. She didn't have any complaints besides the obvious ones.

They were in his garage like they always were when she was convinced he thought they were something special.

"You know," he began. "We're Black and Blue."

"Like a perfect bruise," she agreed.

"Yeah. That's kinda fucked up."

"It really is, isn't it?"

Sometimes Bella and Jacob got out of La Push and Forks. She had never really seen Port Angeles before, so when she told him, he sprung up to the chance of taking her to see something new. So far, she had been taking the lead, giving him a new clue of the mystery of Bella Swan every day. It was fun being elusive and brand-new—it was fun keeping him guessing. Edward had taken away too much of her too soon; that was why she was so broken now.

But Jacob took the lead this time. He took Bella to the movie theater in Port Angeles. It was a small theater—the type to play only four movies a day so one would really have to plan ahead—but she didn't mind. She didn't mind much in regards to Jacob just because he was a genuinely good guy.

Like the good guy he was, during the movie—a dumb horror film—he stretched his arm out around her shoulder and kept it there. She brought her hand up to hold his, and he smiled to himself. This was his first real relationship, and he wasn't fucking it up. They weren't awkward, either. They were just Black and Blue.

The fact that it wasn't verbally confirmed yet killed him, though.

As they exited the theater, she walked with her hands in the pockets of her hoodie, laughing as they discussed how horrible the movie was.

"You sure know how to pick 'em," he said, holding the door open for her as they left the theater and started walking towards the lobby.

"The trailers on TV looked good!" she replied. "I couldn't help it."

"After all the fantastic movies you've seen at my house," he said with a playful shake of his head. "I can't believe your taste is still so damaged."

"You can pick next time, then," she said. "I'll even buy the tickets."

"Nah," he replied. "Nothing that's been out is good enough to see in theaters."

"Oh?"

"You wouldn't believe the cinematic excellence I've witnessed in my nineteen years of life."

She accidentally bumped into him, and then she looked up. Their faces were close. She moved over a little and continued walking.

"Tell me something," she said.

"Yeah?"

"Are you actually that into movies, or do you just act like it because of your friends?"

He thought on it for a second. "Embry does have an extensive collection," he admitted, "but movies are movies. I know how to appreciate the good ones, though."

She bit her lip thoughtfully and nodded as she looked down at her shoes. "I see."

"See what?"

"See that you're a fake."

"Oh, I'm fake?" he asked play-defensively.

She looked up again and smiled. "Yeah. Definitely. You pretend to like things for the sake of your friends. Your friends don't give a fuck about your interests and you let them act that way because they're your friends. Apparently."

"Everybody pretends a little bit," he told her. "That's how friendships work."

"Did you pick them, though?" she asked. "Are those people—the people you see every single day and pretend to be into all those movies for—your friends because you actually like them, or because you grew up with them?"

"Why's that even important?"

"I rest my case."

"That's easy for you to say," he told her. "You're the one who doesn't have any friends. You wouldn't know what it's like."

She shrugged. "That doesn't bother me. Everyone's a little fake as long as they have friends around, anyway."

"And you wanna be as real as possible," he said.

They stopped by a bench in the lobby and sat down. It was an empty, aimless early-June day. For Bella, the day of the week didn't matter. It was either work or no work. Jacob or no Jacob.

"My only wish is that I die real," she agreed. "There's no other way."

"I've got you all figured out, then."

"Keep telling yourself that," she teased.

They were silent for a moment. She stared at the shiny black tiles on the ground. She placed her cold hand on his warm one, and she realized she felt at home again. She didn't feel as crazy or out of control.

"Can you tell me something?" he asked her, his voice quiet.

"What?"

"Do you like me?"

She turned to look at him. He had pretty, brown, puppy-dog eyes. His innocence was all in the eyes.

"I can't see myself hanging out with anybody else," she told him.

"Then what are we?"

She gave him a small smile; he returned it. "Whatever you'd like us to be," she said. "But I'm not going to call myself your girlfriend."

His smile dropped. "What?"

"It's such a strange term to me. Boyfriend-girlfriend."

"But we've gotta be something."

"Your friends just think that," she said. She was right. Jake's crew was just a bunch of sharks in disguise. They would come swimming at the tiniest hint of blood. She didn't know why that was, but it bothered her.

"But this is about you," she went on. "What would you like me to be?"

He gave her hand a slight squeeze. "Mine."

"So I am."

"Are you being real right now?"

"As always."

And then he leaned in and kissed her for the first time. His lips were soft against hers, but he didn't know what to do with them. The kiss was awkward, too, but it didn't feel wrong.

When they finally pulled away, they smiled at each other.

They were real, and she was real—real crazy.

She might just end up saving him.

A/N: I'll update Wednesday. The next chapter is a bit of a detour, and NSFW. I mean...

Take care,

HS